Why are you spending this much and not getting an SSD drive? Also why is your hardrive 5400rpm? With the huge price increase on hard drives due to shortages do yourself a favor and just buy a 128gig Crucial M4. Also it might be better to wait on this if you can with new GPU's coming out next year and a new intel CPU, supposedly around Q1.

Yeah the 5400 rpm drive makes no sense. Get a ~100GB SSD for your main drive and a 7200rpm HDD for storage.

i agree, get an ssd ( i myself got a 50 gb and it makes a hugeeeee difference). Those 16 gigs are overkill, you dont rly need that much unless u plan to do video editiong, and the i5 is an amazing cpu, you should rly save your $ and get the i5

i agree, get an ssd ( i myself got a 50 gb and it makes a hugeeeee difference). Those 16 gigs are overkill, you dont rly need that much unless u plan to do video editiong, and the i5 is an amazing cpu, you should rly save your $ and get the i5

RAM is cheap so it doesn't matter much, the i7 is a little overpriced, but those dual 580's cost a cool grand and aren't worth it unless you're burning through a trust fund.

You dont really need 2x 580s for those games, a single 580 is enough for BF3, and D3 will most likely not require that good graphic card.

16gb of RAM is overkill.
4gb is the minimum you will need for gaming, 8gb is fine, 16gb is what you will want to aim for if you are going to use programs that really requires lots of RAM usage, like Photoshop etc.
And you really wont need 1866MHz RAMs, max speed where you can notice is 1600MHz, higher than that is just for benchmarking and wont change anything with gaming performance. You will even be fine with 1333MHz RAMs for gaming.

And as others have said, get the i5 2500K, it performs the same, and maybe even better than the i7 2600 for gaming.
Just look at reviews and you will see.

Also, when buying a system like that, i would definitely throw in a +120gb SSD.
Not only does it speed up the boot time of Windows 7, it also starts up applications faster, and loading screens will be a joke.

Something i would recommend is going for a Z68 motherboard with the Intel Smart Response Technology so you can use a smaller SSD as Chache, throw in 2x 500gb 7200 RPM drives in Raid0 and boost them up with the SSD. You will get 1tb of storage, with the speed of a Sata2 SSD.

I'd skip SLI 580's unless you are doing 3 monitors. Heck, I'd even consider a GTX 570, it will still play those games on high settings with eye candy on. You are better off saving the money, or putting it towards other parts.

the i5 2500k will preform better in gaming, only very slightly but other then that it looks really good, make sure if you get the i7 or i5 its the "k" version means its unlocked and you can overclock it.
maybe can get a better HDD, Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB WD1002FAEX i use one of these and theyre really good

bullshit, the i7 2600k is a better CPU, the only issue is that games don't benefit from hyperthreading (which the i7 has and the i5 doesn't) so in that sense it doesn't really make up for the price difference if you use the computer mainly for gaming purposes.
But the i7 is definately not a "slightly worse cpu".

So yeah, if price isn't really an issue to the buyer than by all means, grab the i7.

Okay so I changed the build a little. Its now also cheaper, . I will change the CPU if possible with that company

corsair 850 w

Intel i7-2600

(SLI) 2 x GTX 570

MSI P67A-GD65

Cooler Master HAF 932 Avanced

8 GB VENGEANCE/HYPERX 1866 Mhz

OCZ Agility 3 Series, 120 GB 525/475 MB r/w

Samsung 500 GB, 7200 rpm[COLOR="red"]

Why keep going with SLI?
A single GTX 580 will be enough for those games.
According to benchmarks, a single GTX 580 can get up to 55 fps in BF3 on Ultra settings, and i would say that that is enough.
SLI is more if you want to start using 3DVision, but then you will also want to look for a 120MHz monitor, or if you want to use multiple monitors.

You still wont need 1866MHz RAMs, you wont see any difference in gaming over 1333/1600MHz.
Higher speeds than that is just for higher scores when benchmarking, which isnt the point anyway for gaming.

If you really want to get up to 1tb of storage while keeping the price down a little bit
I would say get a motherboard with the Z68 chipset (and for upgrades in the future, make sure it supports SLI), then get a nice and cheap 20-64gb SSD, throw in another 500gb 7200 RPM HDD and put those in Raid0, and boost them up with the smaller SSD using Intel Smart Response Technology.
The SSD will work as cache for the 2x HDDs, and give your 1tb storage the speed of a SSD.
I got some friends using the Intel Smart Response Technology, and they dont even have plans to buy any SSD due to this working really well.

bullshit, the i7 2600k is a better CPU, the only issue is that games don't benefit from hyperthreading (which the i7 has and the i5 doesn't) so in that sense it doesn't really make up for the price difference if you use the computer mainly for gaming purposes.
But the i7 is definately not a "slightly worse cpu".

Some old games actually lose framerate when played on HT processors, that's why it can be slightly worse for gaming use.

Originally Posted by Mancerot

Why keep going with SLI?

If the OP wants to spend some money on a great gaming computer, SLI of GTX570's is good way to go. It will give framerates about 80% over single GTX580 with only slightly higher price.

Originally Posted by Mancerot

You still wont need 1866MHz RAMs, you wont see any difference in gaming over 1333/1600MHz.
Higher speeds than that is just for higher scores when benchmarking, which isnt the point anyway for gaming.

1600MHz RAM has slight advantage over 1333MHz which shows in games and other real world use, however you're right that 1866MHz will give no benefit for the money spent.

Originally Posted by Mancerot

I would say get a motherboard with the Z68 chipset (and for upgrades in the future, make sure it supports SLI), then get a nice and cheap 20-64gb SSD, throw in another 500gb 7200 RPM HDD and put those in Raid0, and boost them up with the smaller SSD using Intel Smart Response Technology.
The SSD will work as cache for the 2x HDDs, and give your 1tb storage the speed of a SSD.
I got some friends using the Intel Smart Response Technology, and they dont even have plans to buy any SSD due to this working really well.

SRT works well enough, but nowhere nearly as good as real SSD. Since the OP is willing to spend so much money, there's no need to go jerking around with some toy cache, instead get a decent sized 120/128GB SSD as he planned above.

Last edited by vesseblah; 2011-11-19 at 09:48 AM.

Never going to log into this garbage forum again as long as calling obvious troll obvious troll is the easiest way to get banned.
Trolling should be.

If the OP wants to spend some money on a great gaming computer, SLI of GTX570's is good way to go. It will give framerates about 80% over single GTX580 with only slightly higher price.

Im not forcing him to skip SLI, just saying that its not really needed for the games he will be playing. A single GTX 580 would be enough, and if he feels that he really could use even higher fps later on, he can still be open for throwing in another GTX 580.

SRT works well enough, but nowhere nearly as good as real SSD. Since the OP is willing to spend so much money, there's no need to go jerking around with some toy cache, instead get a decent sized 120/128GB SSD as he planned above.

At first, he didnt plan on buying a SSD, he was planning on buying a 1TB 5400 RPM HDD, then he said the only other drive he could get was a 500GB 7200 RPM HDD, but he also said that he wants more than just 500GB.
And since the prices on normal HDDs are higher than normal, i suggested that he could get those 2x 500GB HDDs, throw in a small SSD as cache so he still could get up to the speed of a SSD, while keeping the price down a little bit compared to 120/128GB SSD + 2x 500GB HDDs.

If he isnt limited by a budget, then a real SSD would definetly be the way to go, with the 1TB 5400 RPM HDD for storage.
If limited by a certain budget, which doesnt allow both SSD + 1TB HDD, then the SSD Caching could be worth going for.

And in some cases the giant flop that was Bulldozer beats out both: your argument is invalid as most of the time the better cpu will win, unless the particular application is coded in a way to give one an advantage. The i7 is a better cpu, argument over.

the i7 is a better cpu in rendering editing and shit, i5 is better for games in wow for example it's better with like 1.5 fps but if games would exist with multi threading or w/E it's called i7 would definately win, however i don't know of any games that do use multri threading and if there is, there's not many of em at all.

And in some cases the giant flop that was Bulldozer beats out both: your argument is invalid as most of the time the better cpu will win, unless the particular application is coded in a way to give one an advantage. The i7 is a better cpu, argument over.

I never said that the i7 was bad, i was just showing that the most expensive one isnt always the better one to go for, it all depends on what you are going to do, just like Sheeya said.

For pure gaming, the i5 2500K is more worth the money for the performance you get over the i7 2600K due to not many (if any) games supporting HT.
If i can get the pretty much the same performance with something that costs almost $100 less, i would go for that instead, even if my budget can allow going for a i7 2600K.